Govern­ment cuts 287 man­age­ment jobs

Also shuf­fles de­part­ments

The cut­ting con­tin­ues. The pro­vin­cial govern­ment took a ma­jor step to­wards down­siz­ing the civil ser­vice on Feb. 22 and re­or­ga­niz­ing govern­ment de­part­ments in line with Premier Dwight Ball’s vi­sion of “flat­ter, leaner man­age­ment” for the prov­ince.

The shuf­fle re­sults in a net re­duc­tion of 287 nonunion man­age­ment po­si­tions, although 90 of those po­si­tions were va­cant.

Govern­ment of­fi­cials said the job cuts come with a $20 to 25 mil­lion sav­ings an­nu­ally, although this year, it’ll cost about $15 mil­lion in pay in lieu of no­tice.

The govern­ment is restruc­tur­ing sev­eral de­part­ments as part of the an­nounce­ment — Busi­ness, Tourism, Cul­ture and Ru­ral De­vel­op­ment; En­vi­ron­ment and Cli­mate Change; Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil; Fish­eries, Forestry and Agri­foods; Mu­nic­i­pal Af­fairs, Ser­vice NL and Trans­porta­tion and Works.

The ac­tual total num­ber of job cuts was ac­tu­ally 350 man­age­ment po­si­tions, although as part of the de­part­men­tal restruc­tur­ing, 63 new po­si­tions will be cre­ated. The peo­ple who are hav­ing their jobs elim­i­nated will have the chance to com­pete for those 63 new jobs.

The govern­ment stressed New­found­land and Labrador has the largest pub­lic ser­vice of any prov­ince by a big mar­gin.

In 2015, the most re­cent year data is avail­able for, the prov­ince had 94 pub­lic sec­tor em­ploy­ees per 1,000 cit­i­zens. The na­tional av­er­age is 67 pub­lic ser­vice em­ploy­ees per thou­sand.

The 287 job cuts are just a drop in the bucket, though. They will only drop New­found­land and Labrador by 0.6 pub­lic sec­tor jobs per thou­sand — still the largest per capita pub­lic ser­vice by a sig­nif­i­cant mar­gin.